Defending the Christian faith and promoting its wisdom against the secular and religious challenges of our day.

Friday, May 18, 2012

A Letter to a Friend Struggling with the Issue of Same-Sex Marriage

You raise several important issues. Let me just respond to
the one that I think is at the crux of the confusion:

“In my
opinion, the state CANNOT, by the laws as set out in the Constitution and
by the equality statements in The Declaration of Independence, deny anyone
certain rights that they give to others.”

Even though we would agree with the Declaration that we are
all created equal, this doesn’t mean that the State can’t discriminate
behaviorally. The State exercises the right to disqualify certain people from
driving based upon their age, performance and driving record.

In fact, all laws discriminate. Therefore, the question must
be whether or not they discriminate justly and in a way that promotes the
general welfare. This should also pertain to the institution of marriage.

The State has always exercised discrimination in regards to
marriage, divorce and child custody issues – and yes, their authority
ultimately comes from God in all areas. The State has understandably
discriminated against polygamous marriage, pedophile marriage, incestuous
marriage and forcibly arranged marriage.

Should the State not be involved? Should someone be able to
start a business marrying 100 young girls from Moldavia in order to give them
residential and monetary benefits? Should parents be prevented from marrying
off their 5-year-old girls to a billionaire for money and so he can have
sex-slaves? Of course not!

What would be the long range impact of instituting gay
marriage? Can any society survive such an institution?

• For example, in Norway, a country that has had
de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties, illegitimacy is exploding.
In Nordland, the most liberal county
of Norway, where they fly
gay “rainbow” flags over their churches, illegitimacy has soared—more than 80
percent of women giving birth for the first time do so out of wedlock, and
nearly 70 percent of all children are born out of wedlock. Across the entire country
of Norway,
illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex
marriage. http://www.allaboutlove.org/same-sex-marriage-countries.htm

• But it’s not just Norway. Blankenhorn reports this
same trend in other countries. International surveys show a mutually
re-enforcing relationship between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy. Natural
marriage is weakest and illegitimacy strongest wherever same-sex marriage is
legal.

• [Blankenhorn]: “redefining marriage to include gay and
lesbian couples would eliminate entirely in law, and weaken still further in
culture, the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child.”…He goes on
to warn that if same-sex marriage is adopted, the claim that “every child needs
a father and a mother” will probably be viewed as “divisive and discriminatory,
possibly even as hate speech.”

• Furthermore, homosexual activists are fighting to change
marriage laws because they know that there is a causal connection between law
and behavior. As people like Sullivan and Signorile have admitted, they don’t
want to change the law so they can get married, but because they know that a
change in the law will change the attitudes and behaviors about marriage and
homosexuality for all of society.